A group of Republicans who have decided not to run for re-election told CBS’s “Face the Nation” on Sunday that the Republican Party has changed, and not for the better. Reps. Ed Royce (R-Calif.), Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.), and Charlie Dent (R-Pa.) and Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) complained about the GOP’s narrowing focus and the perception that the Republicans must pledge loyalty to the president instead of to GOP principles. […] Royce said he always considered the Republican Party to be “a big tent party” with room “for a lot of different viewpoints.” He said part of the answer is for...

The Schumer-Rounds-Collins immigration bill would be a total catastrophe. @DHSgov says it would be “the end of immigration enforcement in America.” It creates a giant amnesty (including for dangerous criminals), doesn’t build the wall, expands chain migration, keeps the visa... lottery, continues deadly catch-and-release, and bars enforcement even for FUTURE illegal immigrants. Voting for this amendment would be a vote AGAINST law enforcement, and a vote FOR open borders. If Dems are actually serious about DACA, they should support the Grassley bill!

"""Democratic Sen. Mark Warner texted with Russian oligarch lobbyist in effort to contact dossier author Christopher Steele""" EXCLUSIVE – Sen. Mark Warner, the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee who has been leading a congressional investigation into President Trump's alleged ties to Russia, had extensive contact last year with a lobbyist for a Russian oligarch who was offering Warner access to former British spy and dossier author Christopher Steele, according to text messages obtained exclusively by Fox News.

Democratic Senators are rejecting President Donald Trump’s four-part amnesty-and-immigration reform, and are instead working with business-first GOP Senators to pass an amnesty with only token reforms. “There is not likely to be a DACA deal, though we’re working every single day, on telephone calls and person to person, to try to reach this bipartisan agreement,” Sen. Dick Durbin told Jake Tapper on the February 4 edition of CNN’s State of the Union. Durbin said the Democrats would not stage another shutdown, but declared: I think we’re making real progress. I want to salute the moderates in both the Republicans and...

A bipartisan pair of senators are urging President Trump to not allow a GOP memo accusing the Department of Justice (DOJ) and FBI of abusing their power to be publicly released. GOP Sen. Jeff Flake (Ariz.) and Democratic Sen. Christopher Coons (Del.) — both members of the Judiciary Committee — said Trump "should heed the warnings" from the DOJ and FBI, where top officials have taken issue with the forthcoming report. "The president’s apparent willingness to release this memo risks undermining U.S. intelligence-gathering efforts, politicizing Congress’ oversight role, and eroding confidence in our institutions of government," the senators said in...

Sen. Jeff Flake (R-AZ) believes the recent three-day government shutdown and the deal to end it on Monday gave Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) recipients and other illegal immigrant Dreamers “a better chance” of getting a pathway to citizenship. Flake has been working with Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and Dick Durbin (D-IL) on a bill that would give a “12-year pathway to citizenship for about 2 million” illegal immigrant Dreamers and “legal status for their parents.” On Monday, Senate Democrats agreed to a three-week spending bill in exchange for a DACA vote before February 8. “I do think that...

The State Department announced a new $600,000 taxpayer-funded study that suggests "ideals of masculinity" in Kenya are contributing to terrorism.The department's Bureau of Counterterrorism is seeking a nonprofit group to "explore gender identities of boys and men in Kenya." The grant proposal states that men being "tough, heterosexual, aggressive, unemotional, and achieving" can make them vulnerable to joining Islamic extremist groups."Gender is increasingly recognized as an essential aspect to understanding and countering violent extremism throughout the world," the State Department said. "To date, research and interventions on gender in Kenya have predominantly focused on the role of women and girls...

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said the Republican-led Congress should offer a path to citizenship for DREAMers now and pass a bill that deals with border security and “chain migration later” in exchange for granting “amnesty” to all undocumented immigrants. Rather than waiting until Congress can agree on some sort of comprehensive immigration package, conservatives in Congress have argued that any deal granting legal status to “Dreamers,” called so in reference to the DREAM Act, should be tied to additional border security measures, such as funding for the border wall and legislative language that prevents “chain migration,” or family reunification, in...

The federal government collected record individual-income-tax revenues through the first quarter of fiscal 2018 (October through December), according to the new Monthly Treasury Statement. This was the last quarter before the new tax-cut law signed by President Donald Trump on Dec. 22 took effect. Despite taking in record individual-income-tax revenues, the federal government ran a deficit of approximately $225 billion during the quarter. The Treasury collected a record $390,847,000,000 in individual income taxes in October through December, according to the Treasury statement. That was $30,568,380,000 more than the $360,278,620,000 that the Treasury collected (in constant December 2017 dollars) in individual...

Republican strategists have turned decidedly pessimistic about their prospects for the 2018 midterm elections. Prominent Republicans are now saying privately that Democrats are virtually certain to win control of the House of Representatives. As one senior Republican on Capitol Hill told ABC News, “If the election were held today, the House would be gone. Fortunately, the election is not today.” Another prominent Republican strategist working on the midterm elections went further, telling ABC News point-blank that Republicans will lose the House and that this prospect unlikely to change. “The only question is whether Democrats win narrowly by picking up 25...

Everyone knows something has to be done for America's DACA kids. Everyone with a good heart or a working brain knows it's not their fault their parents sneaked them into the country when they were kids under 16. It's true that by law they are illegal immigrants. But most DACA kids have grown up to become good, law-abiding Americans. They've gone to school here. They've worked and paid taxes here. They've even served in our military. Everyone except a few people on the far fringe knows it'd be wrong to deport these 800,000 so-called "Dreamers" -- now or in the...

As Planned Parenthood smugly announced, via their 2016-17 annual report, they performed 321,384 abortions last year and received $543.7 million in taxpayer subsidies, primarily funneled through Medicaid.It raises the question: When will the GOP get some grit and finally defund Planned Parenthood? There is a myriad of reasons why Planned Parenthood should be defunded, and only one reason why they haven’t been. Following the Center for Medical Progress’ explosive undercover videos, Planned Parenthood has been under investigation by numerous committees, including the House Oversight Committee—which found Planned Parenthood needed no federal funds to operate and could function just as well...

On Sept. 19, Politico congressional reporter Burgess Everett tweeted that he suddenly “[Remembers Vermont has a Republican governor].” His tweet prompted Seung Min Kim, a fellow Politico reporter who covers the US Senate, to reply that she “[Learns Vermont has a Republican governor].” That, in turn, instigated a response by Wall Street Journal congressional reporter Byron Tau: “[Googles the name of Vermont’s Republican governor].” To which Phil Scott, Vermont’s Republican governor, responded that he “[Is Vermont’s Republican governor].” The moment was comical but also insightful, underscoring just how little Washington’s political class knows about who holds the executive power in...

Sen. Marco Rubio says the GOP "probably went too far" in slashing the tax burden on corporations. The Florida Republican told the News-Press of Fort Myers that corporations will largely use their major tax cut to buy back shares or increase dividends to shareholders — which "isn't going to create dramatic economic growth." "If I were king for a day, this tax bill would have looked different. I thought we probably went too far on (helping) corporations," Rubio told the newspaper in the interview published Friday. "By and large, you're going to see a lot of these multinationals buy back...

MONTGOMERY, Ala. — Roy S. Moore, the first Republican to lose a United States Senate race in Alabama in 25 years, moved late Wednesday to block state officials from certifying the victory of his Democratic rival on Thursday afternoon because of “systematic voter fraud.” In a complaint filed in the circuit court here in Alabama’s capital, Mr. Moore’s campaign argued that such fraud had tainted the Dec. 12 special election, which Mr. Moore lost to Doug Jones by fewer than 22,000 votes, and that the Alabama authorities had inadequately investigated claims of misconduct. If the election is prematurely certified, Mr....

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell used a holiday season press conference Friday to deliver a lump of coal to Steve Bannon, mocking the former White House adviser’s “political genius” for costing Republicans an Alabama Senate seat. McConnell, R-Ky., made the remark 10 days after the Bannon-backed Roy Moore lost a special election to Doug Jones, giving Democrats their first victory in an Alabama Senate race in a quarter century. Moore faced multiple allegations of improper conduct with teenagers decades ago and touted extremist views that repelled many women and minorities. “The political genius on display, throwing away a seat in...

Alabama, one of the most conservative states in the country, with one of the most evangelical electorates, is sending an abortion-rights supporter to the U.S. Senate, despite GOP efforts to paint Democrat Doug Jones as an unacceptable extremist on the issue. Certainly, any analysis of what Jones’ upset over Roy Moore means for other races involves a caveat: The Republican nominee was twice ousted from the state Supreme Court and stood accused of sexual misconduct with minors, baggage that gave Jones an opening in a state that hadn’t elected a Democratic senator since 1992. Yet Jones could not have won...

Spirits were high inside the House chamber on Thursday, November 16, when, in the early afternoon, the gavel fell and a measure to rewrite the American tax code passed on a partisan tally of 227 to 205. As the deciding votes were cast—recorded in green on the black digital scoreboard suspended above the floor—the speaker of the House, Paul Ryan, threw his head back and slammed his hands together. Soon he was engulfed in a sea of dark suits, every Republican lawmaker wanting to slap him on the shoulder and be a part of his moment. Ryan was the man...

Why I think the Uniparty stole the 2017 Alabama Senate special election. Digital voting records were not saved. The Alabama Supreme Court overruled a lower court which would have forced digital records to be saved. The reason given was that many machine were not set up to do the recording and there was not time to set them up to do so. Since it’s the law requires that, how come they were not set up to record in the first place? The Uniparty was desperate to keep Moore out of the District of Corruption. Mitch’s boys spent 30 million alone...

President Donald Trump managed to endorse two different losing candidates in the same Senate race, a setback that is highlighting an experience deficit within the White House political team. […] Republicans in Washington and around the country say a bungled approach to the race — in which the president wagered his party’s moral authority with nothing to show for it — should serve as a wakeup call for the administration going into what is sure to be a challenging midterm election year. “This White House is not working on all cylinders,” said Ari Fleischer, who served as press secretary to...